In the story “It used to be green once” written by Patricia Grace mum is the main character, Mum is a interesting character because of these reasons. I found mum interesting because of the way she dressed, she used to dress in a purple dress made out of a Japanese bedspread and the way she raised her children. She would often drive around in an old cruddy car and toot to let people know she was coming. Mum was a very shameless person. She did not care about what people might think of her. Her children were ashamed of her, the car that she drove and the clothes that she wore.
She often used to say “Anyone want a ride? They’ll have to run and jump in”, she said they would have to jump in because the old piece of junk she called a car didn’t have any breaks. In the story Mum is very generous. Every Wednesday Mum used to do her shopping she would tell her kids to drive the car and get the shopping but they would howl. So instead she said “Never mind I’ll do it myself” and after that she wouldn’t listen anymore. When she went shopping she would toot the horn in her car and if anyone wanted anything they would have to run out and shout it out “Mauria mai he riwia” if they wanted potatos.
According to her children, Mum was cruel. She used to shame them a lot. Like she would put red darns in their clothes, cut up old togs and make the small girls wear size 38 chest and the boys wear girls bottoms. If they did not get up in the morning she would drag them into the kitchen, pull down their PJ pants and set their bums on the freezing lino. Mum would give the children holey fruit and a boy from down the road would say “Hey you fulla’s, who shot your pears? ”. Mum was humble because even though her hubbie won the lottery and they became weathy she did not change one bit.
Yes she did get some new dresses and a pair of gummies but she still did not change, the children did alright. Even though Patricia Grace did not say that mum was maori she showed it in some obvious ways. It show that she was maori because in the story people used terms like “ hey you fullas” ect… There were also more obvious reasons too. I really enjoyed this story, I found it really humorous and interesting. My favorite line in the story is “Hey you fullas, who shot your pears? ” I found that very funny. I would really like to read some more Patricia Grace short stories.
